


Blackwater Ridge

by chickenmuffinsoup55555



Series: the batfam supernatural au no one asked for [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, its not very scary, minor scary times?, should I tag the wendigo as a character, some minor canon spn characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27818905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenmuffinsoup55555/pseuds/chickenmuffinsoup55555
Summary: Strange disappearances lead Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian to Blackwater Ridge, where they must face a monster that one of them has an up close and personal experience with.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Series: the batfam supernatural au no one asked for [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891618
Comments: 13
Kudos: 39





	Blackwater Ridge

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i'm alive!  
> sorry for the wait

“Alright, what have we got?”

“Blackwater Ridge, alleged bear attacks at regular intervals—twenty-three years—and guess what today is.”

“Uh, Tuesday?” Jason asked.

Tim gave him a flat look that Jason could definitely see in the rear view mirror. “No. It’s almost twenty-three years exactly since the last missing persons.”

There was a brief, and as Dick would realize belatedly, blessed moment of silence before all three of his brothers exploded at once.

“It  _ is  _ Tuesday-”

“I just meant-”

“Wow, Drake, how stupid can you get-”

“ _ Hey _ , I’m not the one who asked where chocolate milk comes from-”

“That didn’t happen-”

Dick sat back and let the bickering run its course. Sometimes it was easier to just let them wear themselves out then try and force them to get along. They’d all been in the car for so long Dick was surprised this hadn’t already started. And hopefully Damian and Tim would get it all out of their systems so they wouldn’t be at each other’s throats when they dropped them in a motel room. 

There was a lull in the conversation (if “conversation” was really the word for it) and Dick wasted no time in swooping in. “So, Timmy, what else do we know about this hunt?”

“There’s really not much,” Tim said, switching effortlessly back into data-mode. “All the attacks were written off as bear attacks. And they’ve happened far enough apart nobody notices anything weird. But, there is one living survivor from an attack four decades ago.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He was just a kid when it happened, he barely crawled out of the woods alive. Nobody else, in none of the other attacks dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century, made it off the ridge.”

“Huh,” Jason said. “Lucky us this guy happens to still be alive.”

“Yeah, lucky us,” Dick agreed sardonically, with a shake of his head.

“What? I’m just saying-”

“Do we have an address, Tim?”

“Look, Ranger, I don’t know why you’re asking me about this. It’s public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-”

“A bear, I know. A grizzly, according to the papers.”

Dick didn’t glare at Jason, but it was a near thing. Jason always came on strong with the witnesses.

Shaw, the lone survivor of whatever monster was hunting Blackwater Ridge, took a puff of his cigarette. “Yeah.”

“And all the other people that have gone missing this year, you figure that’s just a grizzly too?” Jason pressed. 

Shaw sat down in a controlled collapse into his ratty arm chair. His house was dark, with only a couple yellowed lamps to spread the light. It was messy too, much like Shaw himself, who was dressed like he hadn’t changed in days. 

“You know, if we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it,” Dick offered, trying to keep his voice light.

Shaw visibly suppressed a snort. “I doubt that. Even if it would make a difference, you wouldn’t believe me…”

Dick lowered himself down to perch on the couch across from Shaw. “Mr. Shaw, what did you see?”

Shaw blinked at him, his burning cigarette in his left hand momentarily forgotten. “Nothing,” he said, his voice going distant. “It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like…no man or animal I ever heard.”

“And it got inside your tent?”

“Inside our cabin. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming.”

Dick paused. He didn’t know what kind of life Shaw had lived, but it was obvious this had had a deep effect on him. Dick didn’t want to push at old hurts. But also needed to make sure nobody else got hurt. He had to know what they were walking into. “It killed them?”

“It dragged them away, off into the night. Why it left me alive…” Shaw’s eyes lost focus and he shook his head lightly. He blinked, focusing in on Dick again. “It did leave me this, though.” He reached with his free hand to pull down his collar. Dick looked needlessly up at Jason to make sure he too was seeing the three raised lines of scar tissue that stretched across Shaw’s shoulder down to his chest. “There’s something evil in those woods,” Shaw said, his voice shaking with decades-old fear. “Some kind of demon.”

  
  


“It’s not a demon,” Jason said, the moment they’d stepped outside of Shaw’s house into the blinding sunlight. “Unless the demon was possessing a rugaroo or something.”

“What are you thinking, then?” Dick asked as he pulled open the passenger’s side door of the Impala. “That’s not a bear, that’s for sure.”

Jason snorted as they got into the car. “Yeah. Not sure what it is though. We should probably pack as much of the arsenal as we can carry.”

“Wait,” Tim said, leaning forward from the backseat. “You don’t have any leads on what this thing could be?”

“Not really,” Jason confirmed blithely. “We know it can unlock doors, leaves big ass claw marks, and is freaky as hell. Just another day at the office.”

“Sounds like you need backup,” Damian said.

Dick looked back at him sharply, remembering all too well the last time Damian came along as ‘backup.’ “We’ll be fine. You and Tim are going to spend the night in a motel.”

“Why? I’m perfectly capable of providing backup, and I’m sure Drake is sufficient as well-”

“Damian, I’m not arguing about this,” Dick snapped. Damian’s mouth clicked shut, and instantly Dick felt a pool of guilt forming in his stomach. “Dami, listen,” he tried again, softer now, “it’s important that me and Jason know you and Tim are safe while we’re out there. We can’t focus on the hunt if we’re worried about you.”

Damian’s jaw remained glued shut as he leaned back in his seat. 

“That makes sense to me,” Jason said, sticking the keys into the ignition. “Tim, how about the directions to the nearest and cheapest motel?” 

They got Tim and Damian situated, and Dick made sure to keep Damian in his line of sight the whole time while he gave Tim the same-old spiel about all their contingency plans. Before leaving, he told Damian emphatically to  _ stay put _ . He wasn’t sure if he’d gotten through to him or not.

“You know,” Jason said, once they were in the car again. “If we’re lucky, this thing will just go after us. Then we can just load it up with some silver and call it a day.”

“Assuming silver can kill it,” Dick said, eyebrows raised. He didn’t say, ‘We’re never lucky,’ because that felt a little too pessimistic, and he generally did his best to filter that out.

When they arrived at the trailhead for Blackwater Ridge, his pessimism was confirmed. Jason eased the Impala into a parking space and the two of them popped out of the car. Dick slid a badge over the hood to Jason and mouthed “Rangers.” Jason grabbed the badge and in the same movement slid his sunglasses onto his face. Dick suppressed a smile and rolled his eyes instead.

“Hey there!” Dick called out, waving a hand above his head. Three sets of eyes snapped over to him and Jason. He and Jason exchanged a look that said neither of them missed the shotgun in the party. Dick started walking over to the group as Jason slung their army green duffle over his back. “I’m Dick Roberts, and that’s Jason Carmen. We’re Rangers with the Park Service.”

“Are you here for search and rescue?” the girl standing in the middle of the group asked. Dick gave each of the three a once over. The girl was about his age, with tight auburn curls loose around her face. To her right was a boy, younger than Jason, Dick thought. The guy with the shotgun was older, late thirties or forties, and he did not look pleased to have company.

Jason stood by his side, crossing his arms over his chest. “Who are you? We introduced ourselves, now it’s your turn.”

The girl’s previously open expression settled into something more disgruntled. “I’m Haley Collins. This is my brother Ben, and this is Ray. We uh, we hired him to help keep everybody safe.”

“Safe?” Even with the sunglasses, Dick could see him raising his eyebrows, completely for show. They both knew there was plenty reason they wouldn’t be safe in these woods.

“Something happened to our brother,” Haley said firmly, even confrontationally. “That’s the only reason he wouldn’t have checked in. We’re going to find him. Have you been sent here to find him or not?”

“Don’t worry,” Dick cut in, finally getting a read on the situation. “We’re here to help.”

“Dressed like that?” the younger one, Ben, asked with a look on his face.

“What?” Jason asked, making a show of pulling down his sunglasses to give himself a once-over. “I’m wearing boots, aren’t I?”

“You think this a joke?” Ray asked. “This is dangerous back country. Their brother could be hurt out there.”

“We don’t think this is a joke,” Dick assured Ray, though his eyes were on Haley and Ben. “We want to find your brother.” Dick knew all too well the fear lurking in their eyes. They’d been hoping no one had been taken yet, but now that they knew about this, they had a new priority.

“Let’s get moving, then.” Jason clapped his hands together, very nearly startling Dick. “We’re burning daylight.” Once they started moving, Jason muttered to Dick, “And I’m pretty sure this thing hunts at night.”

“So,” Dick said loudly, so all members of their newly formed party could hear, “your brother-”

“Tommy.”

“-Tommy, he was camping, right?”

Haley turned back, giving him a strange look. “Yes. Just like we said in the report.”

“I’m just making sure we’re getting our facts straight. How long has he been missing?”

“It’s been more than three days now since he’s checked in. He’s supposed to be gone for about another week, but he checks in every day.”

“Maybe he can’t get cell reception,” Jason suggested.

“He’s got a satellite phone. Look, he wouldn’t just forget. It’s just me, Ben, and Tommy now, our parents are gone. We keep pretty close tabs on each other. If he’s not checking in, there’s something wrong.”

Dick understood keenly how close-knit a family can become when all they have is each other. And Haley seems like she was the oldest, which meant Dick understood better than anybody what she was feeling. “Alright,” he said, which seemed to surprise her. “I believe you.”

Haley stopped walking for just a second to look at Dick, eyes wide. He gave her a reassuring smile. There was a reason there weren’t real Rangers here. Then she kept walking, and after a couple minutes where the only sound was the overly loud crunching of sticks and leaves, Jason said, “So, Ray, you a hunter?”

Dick almost groaned. Leave it to Jason to pick the most dangerous member of any given group and do his best to antagonize them.

“Yep,” Ray said, not looking back, only adjusting his grip on his gun. “Some deer, some bear.”

“Yeah? Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?”

At that, Ray did turn around. “You ain’t one of those animal rights activists, are you?”

“Huh?” Jason asked. He lost his footing for a second, probably from the shock of the question, and Dick snapped out a hand to grab him by the lapels of his jacket before he could pitch forward, right into a circle of serrated metal teeth. “Jesus Dick, I’m fine-“

Dick pointedly kicked the side of the trap, sending it snapping shut with a resounding clang. Jason, the ungrateful little brother that he was, glared at him. “Dude,” he said under his breath, “stop embarrassing me in front of the jackass.”

“Jay, I’m pretty sure you losing your foot to a bear trap would have been more embarrassing.”

“Watch your step,” Ray said from a few paces ahead of them, and Dick was about ninety percent sure he’d heard what Dick had said.

Jason mumbled something else under his breath, but kept moving after Haley said, “What happened to ‘burning daylight?’”

It was well past midday before they found Tommy’s campsite, and when they did, Dick couldn’t help but wish that maybe they hadn’t. All the camp’s supplies are strewn about the site, and tents are torn to shreds, with the unmistakable red of blood staining whatever’s left of the site.

“Tommy!” Haley cried out, following a soft and horrified, “Oh God.” Haley ran into the camp, dropping her pack as she went. “Tommy!  _ Tommy! _ ”

“Hey, hey, quiet!” Jason said, a little too loudly.

“Tommy!”

“It could still be here,” Jason hissed, grabbing Haley by the shoulder. She shook off his grip immediately. 

“What do you mean, ’it’?” Ben asked, fiddling nervously with the straps of his own backpack.

“I mean whatever did this.” Jason gestured broadly around the campsite. “And it sure as hell wasn’t a grizzly.”

“What do you think it was, if not a grizzly?” Ray scoffed, though his hands were gripping his shotgun tightly.

“I don’t know.” Jason caught Dick’s eyes and held them. Dick shook his head minutely. 

“ _ Help! Help me!”  _ Half their group jumped at the sound of a frantic voice coming from outside the campsite. Without even glancing at each other, Jason tossed a pistol to Dick—loaded with silver bullets, of course—and the two of them, plus their entire unplanned entourage, were pounding through the woods in the direction of the voice. “ _ Help me, please!”  _

Dick pulled to a sudden stop in a small clearing. Everyone else followed suit. The woods surrounding them were silent, void of life.

“It was coming from around here, wasn’t it?”

Dick glanced around the surrounding woods, breathing heavy. “Back to camp,” he said. Then louder, “We should get back to camp.”

“C’mon!” Jason snapped, and then they were all running back in the direction they came.

“My pack!” Haley exclaimed. Her backpack, and, if Dick wasn’t mistaken, Ben’s backpack were missing from the campsite where they’d dropped them.

“Jason,” Dick began.

“Yeah.” Jason grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to the side, out of earshot of the others. 

“That voice wasn’t human,” they said in unison.

Dick let out a breath. “Yeah, definitely not. I just don’t know what it could be.”

“It can mimic a human voice, it leaves claw marks wider than a skin-walker, it can open locks and doors,” Jason counted off on his finger. “Dick, all signs point to Wendigo.”

“A  _ Wendigo _ ? This far south? Wedigos are born when a human eats too much human flesh-”

“Yeah, I know-”

“-which generally only happens up north. You know, with snowstorms and mountains and shit.”

“Yes, Dickhead, I  _ do  _ know. Ignore that for a second, and look at the facts. It’s not impossible there was just some freak who got the hankering for cannibalism without the excuse of a life or death situation.”

Dick bit his bottom lip. Jason was probably right. They were so fucking screwed. “If that’s the case,” he held up his gun, “then these are useless.”

“Uh, what are you doing?”

Damian didn’t look up from where he was tossing random supplies into his backpack. “What does it look like?”

“You’re kidding.” In Damian’s periphery, he could see Tim throw up his hands. “After the  _ last  _ time you tagged along on a hunt, you  _ really  _ want to do it again?”

Damian turned sharply to his brother, his face scrunched up in his righteous indignation. “What  _ happened _ was that I almost saw Grayson  _ die _ . Clearly, he needs my assistance.” Damian zipped his backpack primly and threw it onto his shoulders, in the same motion he tugged the straps, tightening it efficiently.

Tim stepped between him and the door. “He has Jason’s ‘assistance.’ And you’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you go. Because you conveniently left out that last time  _ you  _ also almost died.”

“Out of my way, Drake.”

“Am I talking to a brick wall?  _ No,  _ Damian.”

Damian huffed. “You can’t keep me here forever. You have to sleep sometime.”

“Ha!” Tim scoffed. “You underestimate the combined power of triple-shots and Redbull.”

Damian, while not necessarily prone to self-reflection, was still aware enough of his own limitations to know that Tim could and would outlast him in that particular competition. He could never admit that aloud, but he could internally recognize that it was true. Therefore, he needed a solution that both maintained his pride and got him out of the motel room. Damian glanced between Tim and the door. Tim noticed him glancing between himself and the door. He held up a hand.

“Don’t try it-”

Damian lowered himself into a crouch and then charged, head on, towards Tim.

“Damian—oof!” Tim didn’t have sufficient time to dodge, despite clearly recognizing Damian’s intentions several seconds before he started moving. Damian’s shoulder landed solidly against Tim’s stomach. In what Damian presumed was both a desperate act of revenge and a last-ditch attempt to prevent him from leaving, Tim grabbed Damian’s backpack, successfully pulling them both to the ground.

“Little—ugh—monster,” Tim grit out as he and Damian grappled on the ground.

Damian shoved his knee against Tim’s stomach, and, while Tim was still winded from the blow, managed to pull himself to his feet and make a desperate grab at the doorknob.

He’d just barely turned the knob when Tim’s hand enclosed around his ankle, nearly throwing him back to the floor.

“Let  _ go _ !” Damian kicked violently, trying to escape Tim’s grip. “I’ve got to-” another kick “-go-” Tim was on his feet now “-help them!”

Damian broke free and managed to pull them door a couple inches forward before Tim slammed it closed. Damian glared at him. 

“Damian, Jason and Dick have been on countless hunts all on their own, you are being irrational.”

Damian felt his indignation flare in his chest.  _ Irrational _ . He wasn’t irrational. He  _ knew  _ he could help. He could shoot, stab, and fight just as good as anyone in the family. There wasn’t any reason he should be sidelined for hunts—last time, if it weren’t for him, Dick would be dead. It wasn’t his pride that decided this; he knew it with a bone-cold certainty that wasn’t at all comforting. He couldn’t allow that to happen, not to Dick, not to Jason.

“If you want to let them die in the woods,  _ you’re  _ perfectly capable of staying here. But  _ I  _ won’t stay here while they could be dying!”

Tim gave him a strange look, one with his eyebrows drawn firmly together. “You can’t drive. They took the Impala. How are you planning on getting there? And if you say ‘walk’ I swear to God-”

“Ever heard of calling a cab?” Damian asked, injecting as much sarcasm as he could into his voice, but still managing to sound more genuinely frustrated than anything else.

“You,” Tim scoffed, “the ten year old is gonna call the cab?”

“Either me or the fourteen year old.” It was a challenge, and the thing was, neither Damian nor Tim could ever back down from one of those. Damian saw the exact moment Tim’s resolve to follow Dick’s directive broke and the resolve to meet the challenge took its place. 

Tim dug his phone out of his pocket. “If we’re doing this, don’t think for a  _ single second  _ I’m letting you out of my sight. Because Dick and Jason are going to kill us for this, but they will kill me especially hard if you end up lost in the woods without me.”

“ _ Tt.  _ I will not get lost. Now get moving. They’re at least an hour ahead of us by now,” Damian said, shoving by Tim to get to the door.

  
  


“What are you doing?”

Dick didn’t glance up, despite the fact that the question Haley was asking was perfectly valid. To anyone not versed in the supernatural, Dick probably looked insane.

“They’re Anasazi protection sigils,” Dick explained, digging his stick even deeper into the dirt.

“Oh,” Haley said. “Oh—I didn’t realize you were-”

Dick looked up at her with a vaguely amused expression. “I’m Romani.”

Haley flushed, but she recovered fairly quickly, now with a hint of anger. “Then why are you drawing Native protection symbols in the dirt?”

“Because as long as we stay in the circle, they’re going to protect us.”

“Protect us from  _ what _ ?”

“Whatever’s out there,” Jason cut in, apparently having finished his side of the circle.

“ _ Whatever’s out there?”  _ Ray asked incredulously. “A bunch of drawings in the dirt isn’t going to stop a bear.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not a bear we’re trying to stop.” 

“Yeah? Then what? A cougar?”

“No, jackass, a Wen-”

“Jason!” In an instant Dick was standing by Jason’s side, a restraining hand on his shoulder. Then, lower, so hopefully no one else could hear, he said, “Shut  _ up _ , Jay.” Jason ground his teeth for a couple more seconds before he turned to the side, a tacit sign of his agreement. “It’s starting to get dark,” he said to the group. “Things will only get more dangerous at night. We should set up a fire and some kind of perimeter.”

At least, on that, there seemed to be no disagreements. Dick took natural charge and set everybody to work either consolidating the remaining scraps of the camping equipment still scattered around or gathering wood for a fire. By the time the sky had turned pink and the sun had dipped below the tree line, they had a fire roaring in the center of the camp. Haley and Ben sat near each other, and Dick didn’t think it was random, how Haley positioned herself just slightly in front of Ben. Ray sat on the opposite side of the fire from them, staring out into the gathering darkness with a finger hovering above the trigger of his shotgun. Dick had just tossed another piece of wood onto the fire when he saw Haley say something to Ben, and, after receiving a nod, stand up and make her way over to Dick.

“You’re not Rangers, are you?”

Dick glanced at Jason, who was sitting on a nearby tree stump, their duffle of weaponry open in front of him. The answering look he got told him this situation was all his to deal with.

Dick turned back to Haley and her expectant gaze. “No. We’re not.” He tried for a sheepish smile. “What gave us away?”

Haley snorted. “What? You mean, aside from the everything about you two? Rangers don’t talk like there’s some kind of monster hunting us.” When Dick remained silent for just a moment too long, she said, “Oh my god. You really do think there’s a monster hunting us. You realize that’s insane, right?”

“Yes, I realize how that sounds, but think about it. What kind of animal does what this thing has done? From the state of the campsite, to the voice, to the bags-”

“Yeah! It could just be some nut job serial killer!” Haley noticeably stopped herself. “ _ Just some nut job serial killer _ . God, what am I saying?”

“I’ll admit, that honestly sounds better than the alternative,” Dick admitted. “But the truth is, it is a monster. It’s called a Wendigo, and it’s the perfect hunter. It’s probably going to try and pick us off one by one-”

“If what you’re saying is true-” she didn’t exactly sound  _ convinced _ , but it was progress, Dick thought “-then…what about Tommy?”

She asked it like she barely wanted to hear the answer. Dick tried to look as comforting as possible. “The Wendigo doesn’t always kill immediately. Sometimes it takes its prey back to its lair for… _ later _ .”

Haley nodded, before she caught herself and shook her head instead. “And what does this make you? How would you know all this stuff?”

“Well, let’s just say…saving people, hunting things, it’s sort of the family business.”

“The family business.” She seemed unimpressed.

Dick jabbed a thumb in Jason’s direction. “That’s actually my brother.”

Haley’s eyebrows drew together. “You know, that part actually does make sense,” she said, and Dick laughed, even though his humor was short-lived.

“Trust me, Haley, we’re going to do everything in our power to find your brother. And if we can bring him home, we will.”

“Here,” Jason said, suddenly standing next to them, with a stick with some fabric tired around the end extended to Haley. “This can be a torch. The only thing that’s gonna hurt this thing is fire.”

Haley took the stick, but not without casting a suspicious look at both brothers. All the same, she lit in in the fire before going back to sit with Ben. Jason went back over to his tree stump, and Dick followed.

“What have we got?” he asked, settling himself down on a log across from Jason.

Jason tossed a can at Dick. “We got a couple of aerosol cans and lighters. And that’s about it.”

Dick turned the can over in his hands. “Not a whole lot to work with.”

“Well it’s not like I packed a flamethrower. And I’ve got a feeling this thing’s not about to let us waltz out of the woods for a resupply.”

“Probably not,” Dick conceded. He threw on a brave face. “We can handle it.”

Jason shrugged. “We’re gonna have to.”

He was right, of course. If they didn’t walk out of these woods, leaving a dead Wendigo in their wake, Dick didn’t know what would become of Tim and Damian. Dick let the silence between them linger for a little longer before he asked, “You good?”

Jason’s eyes snapped away from where he was staring into the surrounding tree line. “What do you mean? Of course I’m fine.” 

“Okay.” Dick leaned back, only slightly. “It’s just, I know how you feel about Wendigos-”

“And I know how you feel about shifters,” Jason shot back. “Doesn’t mean I treat you like glass whenever we’re hunting one.”

“This is different. Shifters are a whole hell of a lot more common than Wendigos. And I know for a fact you haven’t seen one since Bruce dragged you outta one’s lair. There’s a reason he always pulled you off cases where a Wendigo was even a  _ possibility _ -”

“I didn’t ask him to do that,” Jason said, suddenly heated. “I can handle myself just fine. I’m not gonna pass out because of fear or PTSD or whatever the fuck else you think is gonna happen.”

“Look, I’m just trying to-”

“I don’t care.” Jason stood up, and Dick fought his instinct to stand with him. “It was a long time ago, and you’re not Bruce. I’m getting real fucking tired of you pretending to be.” With that, Jason stalked off in the direction of the fire. Dick did his damnedest to ignore the punch in the gut he’d dealt before he’d left. It wasn’t as if he needed any reminding that he wasn’t Bruce. He took a deep breath. Getting into a stupid fight with Jason wouldn’t help them get out of this mess. He had just stood up again when the same voice from earlier pierced through the near-silence of their campsite.

_ “Help! Someone, please, help me!”  _

“Don’t move!” Dick yelled. “It’s trying to lure us out!”

They all stood with their backs to the fire, Haley with a protective arm in front of Ben and the other holding her flaming torch. The human-like cries for help wafted in the night, concealing momentarily the crackling of the fire. Dick had been on hundreds of hunts before. He had been fourteen when Bruce brought him along on his first hunt. Thirteen and a half, technically. The hunt had been a werewolf, and he was supposed to stay glued to Bruce’s side the whole time. But in the adrenaline of the chase—a chase through a shipping yard, where the brightly colored containers, dimmed by the night, all looked the same—he and Bruce had become separated. It had only taken him a few moments to realize the tables had turned. He wasn’t the hunter anymore; he was being hunted. He’d gotten out of the mess with a scar over his heart and a deep tremor in his hands that started when he buried three silver bullets in the werewolf’s chest and didn’t stop until a whole day later, when he locked himself in a ratty motel bathroom and cried for so long Bruce almost broke down the door to see what was wrong. Since then, he’d had many hunts turned south, many hunts where hunter turned hunted, and every single one he’d come out on top in the end. But still, his heart rate picked up, his breath quickened, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he listened to the telltale signs that he had become the prey. 

A loud crack echoed in the woods, like a branch snapped in two by careless feet. 

“There!” Ray exclaimed. 

“Don’t!” Dick all but screamed as Ray pointed and shot at a vague shape in the darkness.

“I think I got it!” For a moment, Dick was blinded by rage at the man’s sheer stupidity as he rushed into the woods in the direction of his shot. By the time he snapped out of it, Jason was cursing and Dick moved too slow to grab him by the arm and stop him from running after Ray.

“Jason!” he called into the night, receiving no response. “ _ Jason!” _ He whipped around to face Haley and Ben. “Don’t move,” he said, pointing forcefully at the fire, “stay right here.” Before he could think any more about whether or not it was a good idea to leave two civilians alone in the woods with a Wendigo on the hunt, he ran off after Jason. 

“Jason!” he yelled, over and over and over again. It didn’t matter if the Wendigo heard, in fact, he’d rather the creature did hear; maybe it would draw its attention away from Jason to Dick. When Dick finally forced himself to stop, he stood, chest heaving, listening to dead silence. He spun around and blinked, trying to force his eyes to see farther in the pitch black. He took a few cautious steps forward, ears strained for any hint of where they’d gone, when he heard a  _ crack _ from above his head. He jumped backwards, just barely avoiding the body that fell to the ground with a thump. The initial flood of relief he felt at realizing the body was Ray’s was immediately replaced by guilt. Ray’s gun was gone and his neck was snapped and that was a very, very bad sign.

It wasn’t hunting for food anymore. This was personal.  
  


They had been walking for hours now. Their initial joy at finding the correct trailhead—something they knew by seeing the Impala parked next to a couple other cars—was long forgotten. Now it was just the two of them, in the woods, walking in what very well may be the wrong direction. 

“Stop that.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You know exactly what you’re doing,  _ Drake. _ Are you  _ trying  _ to alert every monster in a fifty mile radius of our presence by stepping on every single available leaf and stick?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this,  _ demon-spawn _ ,” Tim said, glaring at Damian, “but you’re just as loud as me. Twice as loud, if we take into account your big mouth.”

“At least any noise I make is on purpose-”

“At least I have the self-control not to-”

“Quiet!” Damian grabbed the back of Tim’s backpack and pulled them to a halt. Both of them held their breath. This had happened every few minutes or so—one of them would hear a noise and pull the other to a stop, and they’d bide their time with baited breath until the noise repeated itself, and proved to be a squirrel or some other harmless animal, or until they’d both gotten tired of waiting. 

This time, they stood, Damian’s hand still glued to Tim’s backpack, for two full minutes before Tim exhaled loudly. 

“Probably nothing,” he said, yanking his backpack out of Damian’s grip. “It’s going to be getting dark soon. We should probably find a place to stop.”

“Why should we stop? We haven’t found them yet, and night’s likely to be the most dangerous time. They’ll need us most then.”

“It’s gonna be next to impossible to find them in the dark. We’ll just be wandering around making ourselves easy targets. If we stop, at least for a few hours, we’ll be able to defend ourselves better.”

Damian scrunched up his nose, trying to weigh the pros and cons. “Fine,” he snapped eventually. “Do we make a fire?”

Tim shrugged. “Depending on the creature, a fire could lead it to us, or it could be the only thing that could keep us alive.”

“Maybe…we make a small fire?”

“Might as well,” Tim said, peeling off the faintly worn trail they had been following. “It’s not like we could have been perfectly safe someplace else instead of alone in the middle of the woods with a monster that’s kill cycle just started up again-”

“You’re welcome to turn around anytime. I can do this without you.”

Tim violently tossed some sticks into a pile. “Oh,  _ right _ , I keep forgetting, you’re the best hunter to ever exist, despite being four foot seven and never having been on a hunt.”

“I’ve been training for longer than  _ you _ ,” Damian spat.

“I just don’t get it.” Tim let his backpack fall to the ground. “Why do you want to be a hunter so bad?”

Damian sniffed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t understand? Are you serious? You think if you tell me you want to be a hunter because Bruce was it’s gonna blow my mind? No, I get that part. I just don’t why you can’t get it through your thick skull that being a hunter sucks. This,” he gestured broadly around them, “this is all the time. Someone’s always in danger, and there’s always something out to get you. Why would you want that?”

“I said you wouldn’t understand,” Damian repeated. How could he? How could Damian ever explain the constant itching he felt under his skin, the creeping sense of ‘not-right-ness’ that he could never escape? He always felt wrong—like he was himself but not, like he was afraid of what he might do, even though that was ridiculous, because he’d never done anything he hadn’t meant to do before. But still, Damian never felt fully in control; it was as if there was something else lingering under the surface, waiting for the chance to jump out and  _ take _ control. He felt dirty, and he didn’t know why. Sometimes, he even felt  _ evil. _

That’s why he had to hunt. Because he knew, without a doubt, that hunting was good. His father and his older brothers were heroes. They saved people, and they killed evil things. If Damian did that, if he saved enough innocents and killed enough evil, then he had to be good too. Then maybe that invasive sense of wrongness would go away, and he could finally stop living in fear of himself. Because Damian Wayne insisted he was afraid of absolutely nothing, except this feeling that had dominated his consciousness for as long as he could remember.

Until that feeling went away, Damian would do everything he could to hunt and to make sure his brothers made it back home every single time. Damian wasn’t sure there was anyone else in the whole world who could still accept him, maybe even still love him, if they knew what he really was inside. But that still didn’t mean he wanted them to know. It didn’t mean he had the words to explain to Tim why hunting was so important, and it didn’t mean that even if he did, he’d want to explain it.

“Ugh,” Tim groaned, when Damian refused to clarify any further. “Why can’t you just be  _ normal? _ ”

Damian shrugged off his backpack and turned around. He flopped to the ground and curled up around his pack as a pillow. Behind him, he could hear Tim make an exasperated sound.

“Fine, I guess I’m taking first watch,” he said. “I’ll wake you up later.” Damian listened as Tim finished building the fire, and heard the  _ click click click  _ of Tim trying to get the lighter to catch. Normal, Tim had said. Damian curled his body a little tighter around his backpack. Yeah, Damian wanted that too.

  
  


“Then he’s dead, isn’t he?” Ben asked, and Dick knew Ben was just scared but it set him off all the same.

“My brother’s  _ not  _ dead,” he growled. He couldn’t be. Dick didn’t think he could do this without him. “Yours isn’t either,” he added. “We just have to find them.”

“How?”

“What’d I say? This thing has got a lair somewhere. It’ll be someplace dark, secluded, probably underground.”

“There’s a mineshaft around here somewhere,” Haley said. “It’s abandoned or something. I don’t know where it is, but it’s around here somewhere.”

Dick wasn’t sure Haley was aware she was repeating herself, a sure enough sign she was just as scared as he was. Her torch had gone out, and Ben was seemingly a permanent fixture to her side. “I believe you,” had been the first thing Haley had said to him after he’d come out of the woods and told her Ray was dead and Jason was gone. It wasn’t ideal—it was far from it, in fact, seeing as their only real weapon was one measly lighter and aerosol can—but at least they were on the same page. They both would do anything to get their brothers back from the creature that took them. Dick didn’t care if he had to tear this Wendigo apart with his bare hands, he wasn’t leaving Blackwater Ridge without Jason. 

“Let’s go then,” he said.

“What?” Ben asked. “Now? What if it’s still out there?”

“Jason’s alive-” he was absolutely unwilling to entertain any other option “-which means this thing had to take it back to its lair. So it’s not still out here. But it is pissed as hell, so we have a limited amount of time before it does something we don’t want it to do to our brothers.”

“Okay,” Haley said, nodding like she was psyching herself up. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

And as they started walking, looking randomly for the mineshaft that  _ maybe  _ was the Wendigo’s lair, Dick tried not to imagine what was happening to Jason, because every new image his mind conjured was worse than the last. He couldn’t decide what image would be worse, seeing Jason, bloody and dismembered, or seeing vaguely human-like parts that  _ could have  _ once been Jason. And then there was imagining him, alone and terrified, just like he was all those years ago. Jason had escaped a Wendigo once, Dick hoped he was lucky enough to do it again.

Dick remembered what Jason was like after Bruce saved him. Of course he remembered, it was the first time he’d met his brother. Jason was a lot smaller back then, even a little small for his age, mainly from malnutrition. Bruce led him into their motel room, a blanket around his shoulders. Dick remembered how tightly clenched his fists were. He wouldn’t say anything to Dick, not for days, reserving all his stilted sentences for Bruce. It wasn’t until weeks later—after Bruce had finally made up his mind to keep Jason—that he had relaxed. He and Jason hadn’t exactly gotten along all the time, or even that often, but they took care of each other. They always had. When Bruce was off on hunts, when he didn’t come home when he said he would and they were stuck with nothing to do but wait and hope, they had each other. 

That was probably why Jason leaving for college caused such a rift between them. Dick was proud of Jason. He wanted nothing more than for Jason to follow his dreams, even if those dreams were earning some literature degree and finding some cushy academic job and not hunting alongside him. But still, it didn’t stop the bone-deep sense of betrayal Dick had felt when Dick was left to take care of Damian and Tim and tip toe around their father, ever playing the dutiful son. It didn’t stop his bitterness when Jason didn’t call, despite the fact that Dick squirreled every cent away he could to go to Jason’s college. It didn’t stop his jealousy that Jason even got to  _ go _ , when after barely a semester at the cheapest university Dick could possibly have picked, the family was begging him to come home. And Dick did come home, and he set any of his own dreams aside in favor of his brothers.

But he’d do it all over again. And again and again, because ever since a little boy with a blanket over his shoulders had been ushered into his motel room after spending a day and a half thinking he was going to die, Dick had accepted that he was always going to have a responsibility first to someone who was not himself. He hadn’t even needed Bruce’s talk, a few months later, where he told him: “Jason’s family now, and you have to take care of him when I can’t. You’re all he has.” 

“I think that’s it!” Dick was startled by Ben’s sudden yell. He shushed him, but still followed his pointed finger to a mineshaft entrance adorned with multiple signs saying “Danger! Do Not Enter!” 

“Alright,” Dick said. He pulled two knives out of his duffel and handed one to both Haley and Ben. “That won’t hurt it, but it’s better than nothing. Stay behind me as much as you can.” He held up his can and lighter. “I’ll probably have to get pretty close to do any damage.”

Haley adjusted and readjusted her grip on the knife. She was probably steeling herself, preparing herself to walk in there and see the worst. When she gave him a nod, Dick took the first steps into the mineshaft. 

To say it was dark would be an understatement. Even the white light of their flashlight was swallowed by the darkness. There was a distance dripping sound, and the whole mine felt clogged with a sticky moistness. Every step they took echoed through the shafts, and for the first time Dick wondered if the Wendigo was smart enough to have set a trap. Then he remembered that it didn’t matter, because either way he’d still be walking into this mine, completely blind. 

“What’s that?” Ben’s voice was a hoarse whisper, and when Dick flicked the light to Ben’s side, he could see why. Ben backpedaled several steps, and it was only Haley grabbing him that kept him upright.

“It’s okay, Ben, it’s okay,” she said, trying to force him to stop looking at the collection of human skulls haphazardly piled against the wall of the mine. Some were broken, but all of them were picked completely clean. 

“Least we know we’re in the right place,” Dick said. The siblings didn’t spare him a glance, and Dick didn’t blame them. A pile of skulls was never reassuring, no matter the context. 

Before Dick could tell them to keep moving, a rough growling sound emanated from around the corner. Dick clicked off the light and with one arm shoved the other two to the side, slamming all three of them against the jagged stones. For several seconds, the only sound they could hear was their own suppressed and jagged breathing and the heavy footfalls of the Wendigo. As the Wendigo passed into view, Dick could see in his peripheral vision Haley clamp a hand over Ben’s mouth. Dick bit his own tongue, straining every muscle in his body to stay still has the wrinkled, skeletal body crept through the passage. It was horrifying, of course, at the same time as it was pathetic. Despite all the human skulls, all the bodies the creature had surely eaten, it was still emaciated, its skin clinging pitifully to misshapen bones. 

It passed out of sight, and they all waited an extra minute before any of them dared to move. When they did, it was slower than before, with an extra care to avoid kicking around pebbles or otherwise making any extraneous noise. Dick motioned with his hands, and led them in the direction the Wendigo had came. 

Despite all their efforts, when they entered a wider shaft, one with wooden floors instead of stone, the floorboards let out a painful creak, and then a crack. Dick’s stomach dropped and the split second where he was falling and Haley and Ben were screaming felt like minutes. Then he hit the ground and felt something break underneath him before his head smacked against stone. He heard groaning from around him, which at least told him his companions were conscious. Dick forced himself to a sitting position, ignoring the lightheaded feeling it gave him. Standing up was even harder, and the still-healing bruises on his legs courtesy of a certain Lady in White weren’t helping. He brushed off shards of bone off his back. 

“Tommy! Oh God, Tommy.” Haley had apparently recovered quicker than Dick, and already had rushed to the side of a body hanging by its hands from the ceiling. Dick scrambled to the side of the other body hanging beside Tommy.

“Jason!” Dick lightly shook Jason, one hand cupping his head to hold it upright. “Jason, c’mon buddy, please wake up.” Beside him, he was vaguely aware of Haley letting out a shocked screech and movement coming from the body beside Jason. “Jason, if you don’t wake up I swear to God you will never hear the end of it-”

On cue, Jason’s eyes cracked open and he groaned involuntarily. “Dick…?”

Dick laughed with relief. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“You planning on cutting me down anytime soon?” His voice was rough, probably from dehydration, but his weak attempt at a joke was the funniest thing Dick had heard in a long time. 

“Sure, sure, of course I will,” he said after what was probably a slightly-hysterical sounding laugh. 

“Here.” Haley pressed the handle of a knife into his hand, and only then did he turn and see that she had already cut down her brother, who was currently draped between her and Ben. 

“Thanks.” Dick slashed through the ropes binding Jason, and caught him so he didn’t tumble down to the ground. “Can you walk?”

Jason nodded while he still had one hand on Dick’s shoulder for support. After a couple seconds, he let go. “I’m good.”

“I don’t know where the lighter went,” Dick said, turning to look in the area where he had fallen through the ceiling. His flashlight had gotten lost somewhere too. 

“There,” said a new voice, one that Dick quickly identified as Tommy. He looked like he was fighting to maintain consciousness. He pointed over into a corner.

“Jackpot,” Jason said, and on shaky legs walked over to where all the stolen supplies were piled. With a smile, he held up a flare gun. “Glad to see somebody packed smart.”

“Oh yeah, that’ll do the trick.” Dick caught another flare gun that Jason tossed to him. “Now we just gotta find the exit.”

“We’ll never outrun it,” Haley said, and she was right. Even if they didn’t have to drag Tommy out, the Wendigo was faster than they could ever be.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jason asked.

“Depends on what you’re thinking. Because if you’re thinking I’m gonna let you run off on your own to act as a distraction so we can escape, then no, I’m not thinking what you’re thinking.”

“C’mon, Dickie-”

“No,” Dick said firmly. “You get them out of here. I’ll be right behind you, hopefully with this thing a pile of ash.”

“Fine. But if you’re not out right after us, I’m coming back in.”

Dick nodded, then made a shooing motion with his hand. “I’d expect nothing less, now go!”

Dick gave them a few seconds to get moving, then started running in the opposite direction. “Hey, you stupid Wendigo! You want some fresh meat?” He ran as loudly as he could, hollering and slamming his foot against any lose rocks he came across. When he heard an inhuman growl, he jolted to a stop, purely by instinct. The growling increased in volume, and the same footsteps reverberated through the mine. Dick took off in the opposite direction, confident now that the Wendigo had picked up his scent. Now he just had to stay alive long enough to kill it. 

He turned a corner, his boots skidding on the floor, and slammed himself against the wall. He extended his arm, and pointed the flare gun, finger on the trigger, ready to fire the instant he caught sight of the Wendigo. The growling conspicuously stopped, and the footsteps grew quieter and quieter until they faded entirely. He had begun to worry the Wendigo had lost his trail and now was after Jason and the others, when a flash of motion entered his field of vision. It moved too fast for him to see, but he let loose a shot anyway. The mine erupted with a painfully bright light, and Dick gagged to see the Wendigo completely illuminated. Then it went out, and Dick was left trying desperately to adjust his eyes to the newly restored darkness.

The hollow face of the Wendigo bore down on him and all Dick could wonder was if this was the face that Jason thought would be the last he saw. 

And then he heard a sound like a shotgun and another light flared. Then the Wendigo was burning and screaming and Dick could almost imagine through the screams that this creature was human once. It collapsed to the ground, and Dick scrambled out of the way, letting its ash-ridden body land with a clap. Dick let out a heavy sigh of relief to see Jason standing there, flare gun still held upright.

“Not a bad shot, huh?”

Dick smiled. “I’ve never been more glad to see your ugly face.” It was a Jason-line if he’d ever heard one.

“Are you kidding me? In comparison to him,” Jason gestured at the remains of the Wendigo, “I’m fucking gorgeous.”

Dick shook his head but didn’t argue, still too relieved to see Jason alive and in one piece. It didn’t take the two of them long to catch up with the Collins siblings, who were almost out of the mine, having taken a different path than the one they’d entered through. Now that the danger was over and the adrenaline had faded, both Tommy and Jason were starting to flag, and Tommy really didn’t look too good. The sooner they got back to the trailhead, the better.

They hadn’t been walking for very long before they heard high-pitched voices talking none-too-quietly.

“I must be going insane,” Jason said, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Because I swear I hear-”

“Damian! Tim!” Dick froze at the shock of seeing his two little brothers through the trees, arguing animatedly about something or another. Upon hearing his voice, the two of them snapped their heads over to them, and then they were running over.

“Grayson!” Damian said, before he turned and looked Jason over head to toe. “What happened?”

Dick opened and closed his mouth dumbly.

“Um, who are these kids?” he heard Haley ask.

“Our other brothers, who are about to get the chewing out of a  _ lifetime _ ,” Jason answered, shoving himself off of Dick’s support.

“Tim!” Dick said, finally collecting his wits. “Remember how you didn’t get in trouble last time?” Tim had already started cringing in on himself. He nodded, avoiding eye contact. “You are in  _ so much trouble  _ this time. And you,” Dick continued, pointing a finger at Damian. Damian didn’t back down. He looked up at Dick with his chin jutted out and a determined set to his jaw. It was an expression too familiar to Dick to even begin to figure out who in their family he’d learned it from. “You’re both in so much trouble,” he finally managed to finish. The effect was somewhat ruined as he simultaneously pulled them both into a tight hug. “What were you two  _ doing _ ?”

“Helping you,” Damian said, his voice somewhat muffled.

“You know, this isn’t exactly how I imaged the ‘chewing out’ part, Dick,” Jason said, and Dick pulled back.

“Damian, this has to stop. Me and Jason took care of it. You have to trust us to take care of it. Are either of you hurt? Did you see the Wendigo?”

Tim’s eyes went round. “It was a  _ Wendigo? _ This far south?”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “And not anymore. Thing’s dead.”

“Guys? Hate to break this up, but Tommy’s losing consciousness again-”

“Yeah,” Dick said, shifting to take part of Tommy’s weight from Ben. “Yeah, let’s get out of these woods.” He looked back to Damian and Tim. “This isn’t over. And I want the two of you walking up front. Tim, help Jason if he needs it.”

“I’m fine,” Jason said, but by the time they made it back to the cars, his exhaustion was clear. The sky was just starting to lighten, the cloudy black shifting into the bluish grey of predawn. The faint sirens of the ambulance they’d called once they had service cracked the morning silence. 

“Jay, do you need to go to the hospital too?” Dick asked Jason, low so nobody else could hear.

“I’m fine,” he said, predictably. “I’m just ready to get the hell out of here. We should probably bounce before the ambulance shows up. You know, minimize contact.”

“Yeah. Okay. But I’m driving for once, capeesh?”

“Jesus, who says capeesh? But fine, whatever.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Both Jason and Dick turned to Haley, who’d left Tommy with Ben, both of them leaning up against Ray’s truck. 

“It’s really best if we go,” Dick said apologetically. 

“I get it.” She nodded. “Or, I think I do. Whatever you guys do, it seems…”

“Dangerous?” Dick offered.

“Complicated.”

Jason snorted. “It’s anything but. We see a monster, we gank a monster, we call it a day.”

Haley smiled in the sort of way that meant she didn’t really agree. She glanced back to her brothers. “Thank you. Thank you both for saving my brother.”

“And thank you for saving mine,” Dick said.

“C’mon, I saved myself,” Jason said. “Now let’s figure out where the keys are and get a move on, those sirens are getting closer.”

Dick spared one last smile at Haley, one that she returned, before helping Jason over to the Impala.

It wasn’t until the next day, when Jason was back in the driver’s seat, and the boys were passed out in the back, that Dick finally said what he couldn’t stop thinking about since the night before.

“It just fucking scares me to death, Jason.”

Jason canted his head to the side, the only indication he was listening.

“That they were out there with that—with that  _ thing _ . And after you were taken-” Dick cut himself off.

Jason picked right up where he left off. “Don’t. Don’t do that, we’re fine.” He glanced to the backseat, apparently realizing how loud he’d gotten. When he spoke next, it was hushed but still urgent. “What happened with me, it’s just a part of the job. Last time it was you-”

“It wasn’t just me,” Dick said. He couldn’t help the frantic edge his voice had taken. “It was Damian, too. I can’t—Jay, if I can’t control this, if I can’t get him to  _ listen to me _ , he’s gonna end up-”

“-don’t say it-”

“-dead. He’s gonna end up dead.”

Jason continued to stare straight ahead, but his grip on the steering wheel had turned tight-knuckled and painful looking. “Don’t say that.”

“You think I want to say this? Do you know how bad just the  _ idea  _ of this—of him and Tim—how bad it fucks me up? But it has to be said. Because now, apparently, we can’t even trust Tim to stay put.”

“Well what are you gonna do, huh? You gonna lock them up every time we go out on a hunt? You know that won’t hold ‘em. Or maybe you wanna drop them in some foster home so we can count the days till they turn eighteen and start hunting on their own, because clearly nothing’s gonna stop these two.”

“That’s not-”

“You know nobody gets out of the life, Dick. I’m living proof. Hell, Bruce is  _ dead  _ proof.”

Like an electric current had just been zapped through his body, Dick went dead still. “Jason, I told you,” he said carefully, enunciating each word, “Bruce’s death had nothing to do with hunting.”

Jason, too, had stiffened during their conversation, but hearing this, he relaxed minutely. “Yeah,” he said, his voice less rough now, “I know. I just—we’ll have to be more careful. Give them busywork or something, I don’t know.”

“You really think that’ll work?”

“We’ll have to try.”

Dick turned his head out the window and specifically did not say the thing they were both thinking: how many tries will it take before it’s too late? He glanced back at the boys sleeping in the back. “We can drop them off with Jim for a few days. I think they need a break from the road. Besides, Barbara’s back in town for a little while, so she can help Jim with them.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m sure she wants to spend her off-time babysitting those two.”

“She won’t mind,” Dick assured him. “She and Jim have been wanting us to visit for a while.”

“But you and me aren’t visiting.”

Dick shook his head.

“Right. ‘Cause we’ll be busy—what was it you said? We’ll be busy saving people and hunting things.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So, I promise my next update won't take 3 months. After this episode, I'm gonna start skipping around a bit and they'll be some shorts too (still in chronological order tho). Anyway here's a link to my Tumblr if you care:
> 
> http://chickenmuffinsoup.tumblr.com/
> 
> Edit:
> 
> I received a comment recently that brought to my attention the affect of using the Wendigo, as it is an element of Native culture. it's really something I should have considered before posting.  
> I don't think it would be right of me to write this element out of the story entirely, so I feel like it's important to recognize that this the Wendigo as depicted in this fic and the original episode of spn is an appropriated and westernized version of an element of Native culture.
> 
> So, I've changed the title from the original episode so that I'm not using the Wendigo as some kind of hook (even tho I'm obviously not making money from this or anything), and below I've included links to information about the actual legend.
> 
> [this one is some short, general info](http://www.native-languages.org/windigo.htm)
> 
>   
> These are some articles that put the legend and the meaning of it in a modern context:
> 
> ["Seeing the Wetiko: Through the eyes of a seventh generation Algonquin"](https://www.kosmosjournal.org/news/seeing-wetiko-through-the-eyes-of-a-seventh-generation-algonquin/)
> 
> ["Boogie Men"](http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/tag/windigo-psychosis/)
> 
> ["Nanaboozhoo and the Wiindigo: An Ojibwe History from Colonization to the Present"](https://tribalcollegejournal.org/nanaboozhoo-wiindigo-ojibwe-history-colonization-present/)


End file.
